December 31, 2015

My mother's "unofficial" birthday is today. She was actually born on December 30, but I didn't learn this until many years later when I saw her death certificate. I questioned my father about it, and he said she wanted her birthday to be New Year's Eve. So. And that's why I honor this day with one of the MANY religious personages she championed. Padre Pio (now Saint Pio) was a priest and mystic who became famous among American Catholics in the 1940s-1960s because of his bearing the stigmata, the marks of Christ's crucifixion. It's said by some that his stigmata actually bled, and his legend generated much interest and controversy. But evidently that didn't stop this Neapolitan family from erecting a somewhat startling streetside shrine outside their home in the center of the city. My favorite element: the two plastic bottles seen through the patio glass. Happy New Year! And Happy Birthday, Mom.

December 30, 2015

Oh dear, it looks like the "Love forever" lock custom has hit the American Southwest. I've seen this bizness previously in Paris and in Venice, but never stateside. Until now. You and your loved one affix a lock onto these hearts (there were several along Fourth Avenue) and then throw away the key, uniting you for all time. In theory. (There is a bus driver here in greater Boston who announces the stop at a local church in his thick New England accent as "Sacred Hat," so I'm wondering if the tattoo parlor seen in the background is somehow related to these sacred hearts.)

December 29, 2015

Well, happy birthday to me. It was sometimes tough as a kid having a birthday so close to Christmas. "Santa" would always come up one gift short on the 25th, which would then materialize -- surprise! -- on the 29th. But who's complaining? These days I don't even like getting gifts. So, please, please refrain. Also, please note: slipper socks! (Does this picture make me look gay?)

December 28, 2015

It's said that the Joshua Tree was named by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The 15-40-foot tree's unique shape allegedly reminded them of a biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer. It's also said that it only grows in the Mojave. But my friend Simon and I saw these at Tucson's Desert Museum. So there.

December 27, 2015

Another shot from one of the city's many outdoor markets. This man takes his eggs seriously. I kept hoping I wouldn't trip on the cobblestones and "encounter" his fulsome and fragile display. (Click here to see another egg-based display that I saw in Rome some years ago.)

December 24, 2015

I like this snowy photo of the deer that visited us last winter, but I have mixed feelings about Christmas Eve. There was always a fight in my childhood home on this night, something that I fled as soon as I was able to drive. I headed to my friend Nick's family home where we always had lots of laughs, lots of good food, lots of love. If things work out as planned, I'll be spending Christmas Eve with Nick again this year, going for dinner at Brooklyn's Hazar, our favorite Turkish restaurant. My own home has a lot more love in it and fewer fights than the one in which I grew up, but I still try to spend Christmas with my oldest pal as I've been doing for some 50 years. (Our Mexican friend Marco, when he was giving us all nicknames based on religious holidays, dubbed Nick "Noche Buena." Christmas Eve. Just right.) As for the deer, I'm sure if they had found a manger they would have eaten it.

December 23, 2015

This painting, 'The Seven Works of Mercy' by Caravaggio, is the reason I walked all across the city one Sunday afternoon. I love Caravaggio and I'd never seen this canvas. Painted in 1607 for the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia, it's still in its original location. Because of the distance I had to stand from the painting in order to take this picture, you are forgiven if you're unable to spot all seven of the corporal works of mercy: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, ransom the captive, bury the dead. Originally the project (for which the painter was paid extravagantly) was to have been seven paintings, each with one work of mercy, positioned throughout the church. Instead, Caravaggio incorporated all seven into the one altarpiece. One-stop shopping.

December 22, 2015

When I travel, I love to go off on walks by myself, never knowing what I might find. Here in Napoli, I was wandering around (knowing that I wanted to somehow get to the chapel that housed a Caravaggio painting I'd never seen -- more on this in tomorrow's blog) and came across a slow food/local-and-sustainable farmers market in the forecourt of the cathedral. Look at this vendor (with his single Michael Jackson glove) lovingly slicing his prosciutto. It looked as if there were lots of sales. And, once again, I was a tourist without a kitchen to prepare any of the beautiful offerings.

December 21, 2015

Today is the shortest day of the year, the longest night of the year. Let's hope you're not spending any time after dark with this wedding couple. At first they may look scary. But as with most participants in the All Souls Procession, they're pretty friendly and welcoming. Though they could use a good meal or two.

December 19, 2015

Poor Carmela Pinto. Not only did she die, but her funeral announcement (along with those of others recently deceased) was posted right up there with a poster for some Keplero Trash Party. Is nothing sacred?.

December 18, 2015

At this year's All Souls Procession, there were a lot of people whose costumes incorporated colored lights. On hats, on dresses, even on the swinging hula-hoop brandished about by this young lady. I took her picture and this is what I got.

December 17, 2015

Walking through this Arabic-influenced Sicilian town, I asked a man on the street where the fish market was. He gave me directions and was about to leave when he stopped to add, "But don't buy anything there." My Italian is a little rough, but I think he said something about red tide. Whatever. I finally found the market (by accident) but the only thing red there were these colorful fish. It was a bustling great place with vendors yelling back and forth and loudly hawking their catch. I didn't buy anything.

December 16, 2015

Dr. Blake and I and our new friend Simon whom we met on board our recent Windstar cruise around Sicily and Malta. Jay and I were in the outdoor hot tub, Simon joined us, we became friends in an instant. (As a testament to how much we like him, I'm posting this photo in which both he and Jay look much better than I do -- in spite of my old tricks of covering my sagging chin, wearing sunglasses at all times and always opting for back-lighting.) Simon is an emergency room doctor in Sydney and, in between silly showbiz stories, was able to share some welcome advice with us about Jay's unexpected bout of gout. We're hoping our paths will cross again either here in Boston or there in Australia.

December 15, 2015

This is my father's birthday. He would have been 99 years old today. Hard to imagine. Of course, this is based on his birth year being 1916 (as I saw it on my application to Seton Hall Prep when I was about to enter high school.) Readers who come from Irish families (or who happen to be aging Hollywood starlets) know that such factual information is highly suspect. Here he is at the John F. Kennedy Library on his first visit to Boston. If he looks like he might be crying, he probably was, moved by being in the middle of that whole Camelot/Kennedy business. He cried easily. Just one of the things I loved about him. In retrospect.

December 14, 2015

In the North End of Boston, the city's traditional Italian neighborhood, there is a wonderful pizza place where dozens of people wait on line for unsurpassed thick-crust slices. Also for arancine, spinach calzone, panzarelle and other Southern Italian delights. The decor is "high school cafeteria," ditto the noise level. It's called Galleria Umberto and it is a landmark. When Dr. Blake and I were in Napoli recently, we went to the original Galleria Umberto, a gilded-age arcade of upscale shops with beautiful tilework floors and -- look up! -- this magnificent iron-and-glass ceiling. No pizza though.

December 13, 2015

Meet my friend Kate. We worked together many, many years ago at Boston's public television station, WGBH. She left. Then I left. And we lost touch. Until last year when I got an email from her out of the blue (she'd somehow found me through this blog) telling me that she was alive and well and living in Tucson. I happened to be in Tucson at the time. We met and picked right up where we'd left off some 25 years earlier. This year when I visited my friends Simon and David in that wonderful desert city, Kate and I met again for breakfast, again at the Little Cafe Poca Cosa. And even though the place is famous for its loud music, our non-stop laughs (at the expense of others) drowned it out.

December 12, 2015

The sky in Tucson is just about always this deep shade of blue. So much so that it's almost silly. On my walk through the university one day, I looked up and saw this geometric vista. Silly but beautiful.

December 11, 2015

Crossing this fortressed city can be a challenge. Up, down, up, down. But worth it. Late one afternoon I was headed to the docks to take a ferry to a meeting in Sliema and came down this street. When I looked back...the raking light, the steps instead of sidewalks, the almost total lack of color in this otherwise golden city. A wonderful sight well off the established tourist path.

December 10, 2015

The tomb of favorite son and opera composer Vincenzo Bellini in Catania's cathedral. There are so many references to this man throughout the city that it was surprising to us when the tour director on our Windstar cruise kept referring to him as Benini. Even in his prepared slides. Do your homework, mister! Fortunately, not disturbed by bad spelling, Bellini's work survives and continues to come alive through the voices of singers around the world. (My own version of "Casta Diva" from his 'Norma' remains flawed but enjoyable. Though not as riveting as Callas' cover.)

December 8, 2015

At every corner in each Sicilian neighborhood, you're likely to come across some private expression of devotion like this. (Much nicer than the plaster madonnas that decorate lawns in neigborhoods near my New England home.) And while we're revering the Blessed Virgin, this little shrine might serve as a reminder that today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation. Been to Mass yet?

December 7, 2015

A principal industry here in the northwest of Sicily is salt production. And nowhere more than in Trapani. We were mesmerized watching these salt flats near the town's main port. Sections are flooded with sanitized water and left to evaporate in several stages. Then, when the salt is ready to harvest, that little train you see in the photo heads out to be loaded with what will become, after further processing, the final product.

December 5, 2015

Traveling down one of the many, many staircases that lead from Valletta's fortressed heights to our ship in the port below, we saw, off to the side, some strange, small shelters. It was only later, at the bottom of the stairs that we encountered this sign that explained, sort of, what this tiny shantytown was all about.

December 4, 2015

I always hold my breath when ever I'm a passenger in a car traveling around the hairpin turns on the unbarricaded road that heads down through Gates Pass. Dozens of cars have tumbled off the pavement in the past and continue to do so each year. Still, that's no deterrent to scores of people who come out here, west of Tucson proper, to enjoy the unmatched sunset vistas each evening.

December 3, 2015

Oh, hello, officers. Not exactly the visual you might have imagined when told that police were in the area. But then this is Italy. And even more so, this is Napoli. These cops were standing guard at a street fair not far from the San Carlo Opera House. Sort of. Check out the haircuts. And the eye treatment on the fuzz second-to-left.

December 2, 2015

OK, I love sfogliatelle. And I have a big appetite. And I love a bargain. But even I was able to pass on this larger-than-life pastry hanging in front of a shop in the Spaccanapoli neighborhood -- former dicey area and current tourist attraction -- of this most unpredictable of Italian cities.

November 30, 2015

Oh, hello there. I was happy to see this mountain lion in Tucson's' Desert Museum recently. Even happier that the open-air enclosure insured that the animal was kept at a safe distance. Here, kitty! Not.

November 29, 2015

What's wrong with this picture? The capital of Malta abounds with interesting store signage in a wealth of old typefaces. But there's something jarring to me about the imposition of newer signage that has sprouted along the city's main street. See for yourself.

November 28, 2015

November 27, 2015

You are not allowed to take photos within the Center for Creative Photography. Which is what accounts for the poor quality of this shot I sneaked when no one was looking. I had to. It is a photograph (Double Self-Portrait) by our old friend Arthur Tress. Jay had first met him almost 40 years ago in Provincetown where Arthur had taken some "art photos" of him. I met him when he came to visit us in Cambridge a few years later. During that visit (I remember his exclaiming from an upper room "Che musica, signore!" when I put on the soundtrack from The Godfather, Part II), Arthur had asked me to pose clad only in my Jockeys on the grand staircase in Harvard's Widener Library in front of the beautiful Sargent murals there. I was too shy at the time and now regret not having agreed to it. Sadly, we've lost touch.

November 26, 2015

During my early-morning arrival one day last month, I stopped to photograph these seven wild turkeys disporting themselves on a neighbor's lawn. Bold things, really, when you consider that this is a time of year that they might have been a little bit more cautious about strutting their stuff in such a public way. Happy Thanksgiving.

November 25, 2015

Even though new and trendy restaurants are blossoming aplenty in Tucson, there's still room for longstanding old-school fare. Like that offered here at Caruso's on 4th Avenue. I love their sign, standing proudly above all the hookah parlors, the head shops, the hipsters on the most unconventional thoroughfare in town. And I love the term "pizza pie," which is what we called it when I was growing up in New Jersey.

November 24, 2015

On every Windstar cruise we've been on, we've always met some extraordinarily nice people with whom to pal around. Like Marsha here, waving up to me from the pool deck. And, left of her, smiling Eve. And just in front of her, camera-shy Gail. (Have no idea who the woman in the foreground is.) All three of these London ladies had worked in the music industry (Chrissie Hynde, Pink Floyd) and had some wonderful tales. We were sure to see them each day at around 4pm when tea was offered. I remember hearing Gail say that she was going for a "cuppa" and a "bickie." Plus, they knew who my late friend Coral Browne was, so I could download all of my stories about her. Can't you tell from this photo how fun-loving they are?

November 23, 2015

I'd been to the Valley of the Temples twice before -- once on my own in 1984 and again with my friend Nick in 1988. But this time, a guided tour was offered gratis as part of our Sicily-Malta cruise on Windstar. It was a hot day. And our guide was a non-stop chatterbox. (Chiachiarone is one of the first words I learned in Italian, and it applied here. Or, as my friend Diane's late and beloved mother would say, "His mouth did not shut up.") It turned out to be a long day. Still, we did find the occasional bit of shade and the time to take a photo.

November 22, 2015

Dr. Jay (Julian) misses no opportunity to honor his patron saint. This time, at the university here in Sicily's second-largest city. And, what a coincidence, it looks as if San Giuliano's namesake palace was built in the very year of Dr. J's birth.

November 19, 2015

November 18, 2015

If you say so... Actually, this reminds me of every company I've worked for (public television, Bose, etc.) where some whiz kid would come up with an idea to appeal to "a younger demographic." And none of the ideas ever worked. My favorite was when 'Masterpiece Theatre' decided to go for "a younger demographic" by featuring programs based on the works of Jane Austen. Good luck with that.

November 17, 2015

Oh, poor Mr. Whynott. A windy and rainy overnight storm found his election poster soggy and run over in the middle of the street. A placard for his earlier run for election had employed the catchphrase "Why not Bob?" I don't think he won. (Mr. Whynott, or maybe his father, was the justice of the peace at our quick 35-second wedding. We had chosen him entirely on the basis of his name. Why not?)

November 16, 2015

As an ad writer in a former life, I was always drawn to using questions in the copy. I believe that a question engages the reader and forces him or her (consciously or unconsciously) to answer. Maybe that's why I like this spin on a traditional "Beware of the Dog" sign that I saw in our neighborhood recently.

November 15, 2015

Observe the witch-hazel. Green leaves turned golden. And blossoms like fireworks against the cloudy autumn surroundings. As the Brooklyn Botanic Garden tells us, "American witch-hazel has a number of traits that help it steal the limelight, including smooth gray bark, attractive architecture, and colorful fall foliage. But the real showstopper comes when you least expect it. As November approaches and most respectable plants have dropped their leaves and gone to seed, Hamamelis virginiana bursts forth in floristic splendor. Clusters of small, pale yellow blooms, each with four streamerlike petals, hug the twigs. Some flowers may linger on the branches into December." I've even seen them reappear in February and March. How respectable is that?

November 13, 2015

Autumn is my favorite season. Always has been. And here's one reason why: Look at this beautiful view from my front hall window that I'm treated to many times each day. Or at least until the leaves fall off and blow away...which they no doubt have done by the time you read this.

November 12, 2015

Inside Napoli's duomo, there is a chapel to San Gennaro, the city's patron saint. And inside the chapel is this silver, vestment-adorned bust of the saint himself. As I learned, this reliquary contains not only bones of the saint, but also a vial of his dried blood. Several times a year, the blood liquifies (usually on September 19, the saint's feast day, but recently in the presence of the visiting Pope Francis.) I love stuff like this.